The present invention relates to a thread-reinforced joint device and a coupling device for a vehicle drive, in particular for the drive of a low-platform vehicle.
Low-platform vehicles should generally be understood to be vehicles with low-lying floors in the interior. Such floors should primarily serve to enable barrier-free utilization of the interior of the low-platform vehicle, i.e. barrier-free boarding and alighting of passengers. With low-platform vehicles, the interior platforms, i.e. the interior floors, lie below the top edge of the wheels. In the case of rail vehicles, the height of the floor in the interior can be even lower and, for example, be only slightly higher than half the diameter of the wheel. In the case of street cars, the floor height can even be significantly lower than half the diameter of the wheel.
Known from the prior art are coupling devices as claimed in document DE 196 39 304 A1. This document discloses an elastic joint coupling with an intermediate ring arranged between two coupling flanges made up of single metal elements distributed around the circumference and vulcanized into rubber blocks. The metal elements are screwed alternately to the coupling flanges. In the circumferential direction, the metal elements of the intermediate ring are evenly distributed wedges extending in the radial direction across the entire ring width. The rubber blocks are vulcanized between the wedges and held under compressive prestress in the circumferential direction when installed.
This joint coupling known from the prior art is relatively complicated to assemble since the rubber blocks have to be radially prestressed in order to be able to establish compressive prestress of the rubber blocks in the circumferential direction.